


The more I know the less I understand

by UnaOrion



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Atonement and Forgiveness, Ben Solo Lives, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, If JJ Can Do It So Can I, Misuse of the Force, Not Canon Compliant, Post-TROS But Ben Solo Lives, Post-TRoS, Redeemed Ben Solo, Seriously Canon What Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22796305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnaOrion/pseuds/UnaOrion
Summary: The First Order and Palpatine have fallen.  Rey and Ben survived the Battle of Exogol.  But Ben is in a persistent non-responsive state.  In exile on obscure Tatooine, can Rey reach Ben before he slips away from her?  How can they move forward in a galaxy trying to heal itself?  What does atonement look like for Ben Solo?
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	1. A Signature Pulse

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place post-TROS but honestly I kept what I wanted and jettisoned what I did not. As the tag says, if JJ can do it, so can I! 
> 
> A couple notes:  
> 1\. Rey Nobody of Jakku only in this house.  
> 2\. I'll post the first two chapters quickly and the rest more slowly.   
> 3\. The first few chapters end bleakly but don't worry, unhappy endings are not my style.

Later on, Rey realizes she’s has no memory of how she got back to the X wing. How did she get back up the winding metal chain? She is well-versed in climbing old wrecks, rarely takes a misstep, and never loses her balance or feels anything akin to vertigo. Years and years of exploring old imperial wrecks, hunger gnawing at her belly, and nothing but a length of rope in her hands, make her agile and strong. A year ago, she learned that something else in her nature--or the nature of the universe--gave additional reach to the length of her arms and a surer instinct to her footfalls. 

It’s the only way she can explain the strength and stamina it would have taken to drag herself back to her only exit plan from Exogol. Herself--and the unconscious, two-hundred-pound elephant on her back. 

How did she lift and carry him after he passed out? She couldn’t explain it. Somehow, they returned to the X wing. Rey remembered quickly strapping him into the jumpseat and taking off without a single look back to the ground. Her eyes were on the stars. She needed to get him medical attention and to see her friends. 

Touching down outside the rebel base, Rey reaches over to him once more, checks his pulse and his slow shallow breathing, then scrambles down the X wing. 

The rebels celebrating their victory over the Sith and the First Order is a sight to behold. But weaving through the crowd, Rey feels strangely detached. Only when she sees Rose, standing with Finn and Poe, does she feel the flood of relief loosed inside her. In that moment, she misses Leia more than words can say. 

She knows Rose, Finn, and Poe feel the same way. They’ve all been through so much with her. And now she has to test their strength again. 

She knows she is placing his life and hers in their hands. In their hands she must trust. 

But Rey is no poor judge of character. 

If they are shocked by what she reveals and asks of them, they do not show it. Rose leaps to action first, retrofitting a supply wagon to serve as a self-suspending gurney. Finn and Poe help her transfer him to the Falcon. Poe requisitions equipment and supplies for her. Finn collects extra blankets and clothing--probably from his own belongings--and gathers up as much food as he can. Chewie looks the Falcon over for any repairs and refuels it for her. Everything is packed and ready to go within half an hour. 

She hugs each of them tightly. When she’s through hugging Poe, he stands back, looks at her with a strange light in his eyes, and hands her a data tablet. He says, “Read it, very carefully. When you have a quiet moment.” 

“Okay,” she says, confused but too anxious to think about it. 

Chewie is inside when she enters the Falcon. He sits on a small chair next to the gurney where Ben is resting. Rey hears a sniffling that sounds as though he’s been crying, but she’s never heard a wookie cry. She stands in the shadow and watches Chewie lift one finger to Ben’s forehead, sweeping away a lock of hair. But Chewie has seen her. 

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks in Shyriiwook? 

Rey’s heart fills with gratitude and joy at the offer. But she knows she can’t ask anyone else to join this mission. 

“No, Chewie,” she says. “I’ll be fine.” Chewie looks at her, hard and appraising. “We’ll be fine,” she repeats. Chewie makes a sound of acquiescence. He stands and comes over to crush her in a hug. Then he’s gone, and she’s alone in the Falcon except for an unconscious Ben Solo, former Supreme Leader of the fallen First Order. 

****************************

That was two weeks ago. Now settled into her bolthole home on Tatooine, Rey sits on the floor beside Ben’s bed, watching his chest rise and fall. He is still unconscious though he occasionally makes a quiet moaning in his throat. She wonders helplessly if he is in pain. But nothing she does can penetrate whatever processes are going on inside Ben’s brain and body. The med droid has proven a little useless because Ben has no significant physical injuries. The little cuts and bruises cleared away with repeated treatments of bacta ointment. The bacta cast repaired his broken leg completely. 

But no matter what she tries, she cannot explain his condition. It’s like his cells are just devoid of electricity. His pulse is thready and weak. His lungs take only shallow, hissing breaths. The med droid’s biometrics measure only minimal organ functioning. He has a fever, but he does not have an infection. 

He’s simply … dying. She knows, has a faint sense, that he drained his life force saving her. But some small trace remains in his body--too much for him to die and be at peace; too little to bring him back to wakeful consciousness. When she concentrates hard, she can just barely feel a miniscule buzz--a skein of the thread of life within him. But nothing more--she searches the beat and rhythm of the force for his signature--his unique pulse. But she feels nothing. She knows and fears that he is hanging by a thread. And there is nothing she can do but wait.


	2. The Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey arrives on Tatooine and settles in.

When she first sets down on the Tatooine sand, the Falcon’s braces sink down and, for a split second, she thinks they’ve landed on quicksand again. But the Falcon settles and stands firm and she breathes a sigh of relief. 

She moves to check on Ben, still unconscious on his gurney, and lowers the ramp to the ground. 

The homestead is nearly buried in sand. Only the dome-shaped top peaks out, along with some random equipment and vaporators scattered in the vicinity. 

Ever since the demise of the Hutt family, Tatooine has fallen into greater and greater obscurity here on the outer rim. No one even knows anymore that the legendary Luke Skywalker grew up here. Poe was sure it would make the safest, most secure place to wait out the negotiation of the amnesty. 

And, because property rights—especially the laws of descent—are paramount and strictly enforced in a galaxy defined by successive wars and a neutral, profiteering elite, the Lars homestead’s ownership is unquestionable. It has passed from the Lars to Luke, then from Luke to Leia, then Leia to her named heir: Rey. 

Rey had sat in numbed disbelief as she read and reread the data pad document informing her of Leia’s final wishes and bequests. It told her, as the last surviving heir of Alderaan and the houses of Organa, Naberrie, and Skywalker, Leia had amassed a “substantial estate.” She only skimmed the lists of properties and the number of credits, previously tied up in Empirial or Republic accounts. She did not know what to do with such things. The Resistance had fed and clothed her and given her purpose, work for her hands, and people with whom to share her thoughts. Compared to her lonely and starved childhood, she is extravagantly set up. She does not want for any material thing. 

So for Rey, it is strange to know: the Lars homestead and all the surrounding land now belong to her and her alone. She brushes the thought aside and walks forward, her feet sinking into the sand, testing and burning her calves. She has forgotten what it is like to walk on sand.

As she moves closer, she senses no one living in the structure. There is a small graveyard beyond to the west but no bodies within. She wonders what became of the Lars. All she senses is a pervading quiet over this place. Nothing has lived or moved here for a long, long time. It feels open and waiting--not even the ghost of Luke Skywalker disturbs it. 

She approaches the dome, peering down into the subterranean home. Sand has filled in just about the entire cavern. Using the force and the motions of her hands, she briskly sweeps the sand out and scatters it to the west. She takes the stairs down into the open courtyard and looks around. A series of rooms are cut into the rock--a kitchen, a sitting area, a bedroom, a fresher, and a workshop. Everything is in its place as though everyone left in a hurry—dishes in the sink and turned-back sheets on the bed. Everything is rusted or crusted over with sand.   
She climbs back up the stairs and returns to the Falcon. About a mile back, she flew over another structure, much smaller than the Lars homestead and not subterranean. Therefore, she hopes it will not be as hard to make clean and sanitary. Perhaps it once housed a hired hand. It’s also closer to the main vaporator array.

The Falcon touches down once more and Rey looks at the little house, well-pleased. It is tiny, but sturdy with thickly-plastered and white-washed walls. Inside there is a living space with a huge fireplace, a small stove, and a sink with taps, a bedroom, and a fresher with a shower and tub. In another building, there is a workshop with some ancient comms equipment she can try to fix. There is also something large under a tarp she hopes will turn out to be a speeder, but she doesn’t stop to inspect it. 

Every room in the little White House is empty but because of the door and the window shutters, there is mostly only a dusting of sand on the floors and on the fireplace mantel. If she can get the place clean and sanitary, it will do. 

She goes back to the Falcon, activates the med droid Poe loaned her, gives it some simple instructions, gathers some tools and equipment, and gets to work. 

****************************************************************

Rey and the droid sweep and scrub and polish every inch of the house. They bring a bed from the Falcon’s sleeping quarters and set it up in the bedroom. They bring the self-propelling gurney off the Falcon and left Ben onto the bed, made up with Finn’s spare sheets and blankets. Now that the suns have gone down, the desert winds down to a dark and clammy chill that Rey knows well. She knows how important it is to get a heat source going and gets to work repairing the stove and the fireplace. Next she works on the water taps, flushing the pipes until the water is no longer stale but still runs slightly dusty brown. There must be some reserve tanks holding clean water because these vaporators have not been operational in a few decades. That will be the first order of business tomorrow. 

Meanwhile, the med droid sees to Ben, monitoring his vitals and intravenous fluids. She has placed a bacta-based cast over his broken femur. In somewhat quaint fashion, she lays both his hands crossed over his chest. Rey stops and looks at the droid’s ministrations for a moment. Ben is pale and unmoving. He looks like he could be dead, laid out like a corpse. She looks away and continues her work. 

Every evening the med droid delivers her report on how Ben is doing in her wheezy, mechanical voice. Organ function minimal. Tissue regeneration minimal. Brain activity minimal. A litany Rey can repeat in her sleep eventually, curled onto the banquet couch brought out from the Falcon that she sets up in the small sitting room, piled with more pillows and blankets supplied by Finn and the Resistance. 

Their first morning, she leaves Ben in the capable hands of the med droid and goes out to the workshop. She uncovers the ancient speeder, fuels it up, and finds it works but with a spluttering and hitching inconsistency she fears might come back to bite her. Still, she is able to load up her tools and go out to the vaporator array and begin to make repairs. Each vaporator must be stripped of sand, dust, and residue, built up over many years. Once the mechanicals are back online for a half dozen of them, she turns them on. They begin their familiar hum--the sound of a nearby vaporator could save your life on the Goazan Plain of Jakku--and Rey returns to the little house to continue flushing the reservoirs and pipes. Finally, the water runs clear. She brings dishes from the Falcon’s galley and takes a long, cold drink. It is nearly midday and the suns are bright overhead. 

She takes the hottest hours as a break to see to the comms in the workshop. She soon has them running and sends Poe the briefest message, just to let him know they are safe. 

She scans the broadcast networks for any news of what is going on with the peace negotiations. One broadcast reports: Poe Dameron and Rose Tico, duly elected representatives of the resistance and free worlds, have been engaged in intense negotiations with Supreme Leader Armitage Hux, one of the last remaining commanders of the former First Order. If such a title still exists when your own army of kidnapped child soldier stormtroopers rebels and overthrows you. Finn Jakku and Jannah Kef Bir, defector stormtroopers, who led the rebellion against Hux, represent the hundreds of thousands of stormtroopers across the galaxy now seeking new homes and attempting to reconnect with lost family. 

The earliest signs indicate a total amnesty will be called. Atrocities were committed at every level of command and in nearly every region of the galaxy. The only way to square and balance the wrongs is through a total amnesty--from the soldiers conscripted as children, up through the highest levels of command. Poe Dameron and Rose Tico have presented credible testimony that former Supreme Leader Kylo Ren not only survived the Battle of Exogol but defected from the First Order and was instrumental to the success of the Resistance in defeating Palpatine and the Final Order. Rey listens carefully for any sign the broader galaxy is aware that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, son of Han Solo and General Leia Organa, or that anyone knows where they now live in exile. 

But with the end of the war--people coming out of hiding, and looking toward new horizons and newly-promising futures--Ben and the Resistance fighter, Rey of Jakku, are on no one’s radars. 

Rey breathes a sigh of relief, drops the comms headphones, and returns to the house for a quick bite of the food Finn packed her. She drinks another glass of water to enjoy the luxury of having water to hand whenever she needs or wants it. She checks in on Ben, speaking with the med droid. No change. Still unconscious. She goes back to restoring vaporators. Returning late, she is exhausted and pleasantly sore from simple and honest hard work. She eats, then sleeps quickly and deeply. 

Two weeks pass like this--but keeping busy to ward off having to think about anything can only last so long. Because she does not plan to sell water as a crop, she does not need to bring all the vaporators online. She will soon have enough to seed some hydroponic pods she found in the workshop. If she can find seeds. 

The whirl of settling into the place drops like a dissipating cyclone one day two weeks in. The med droid informs her it is time to remove Ben’s bacta cast. She watches as the droid slips the molded plastic off Ben’s leg. She didn’t notice, because she had been too busy and the droid kept Ben’s clothing and bed linens fresh. But apparently underneath the sheets, he is not wearing pants. Ridiculous, she thought, why would he wear pants, he’s not going anywhere. And even though a normal person would experience at least a twinge or a strain at the removal of such a cast, Ben is silent and motionless, as usual. But his femur is repaired. 

That night she has a fitful sleep. In the early morning hours, while the light is still thin and gray, she wakes from a nightmare--She and Ben are alone in Palpatine’s throne room. It was after they had extinguished him together, forever. Ben, exhausted and drained, falls to the floor before her, the spark of life gone from his open staring eyes. Rey, bruised and battered, crawls over to him, speaks his name, but he does not respond. She cradles him in her arms and places her hands upon him, conveying to him all the energy of life, all the warmth and focus of the force within her, into him. But he does not stir and eventually she realizes it is not enough. She is drained and hasn’t the energy within herself to revive him. The cold realization sinks in that he is gone. His skin is cold and clammy blue. There is a screaming in her ears she cannot shut out. Nooooo! It shouts. Noooooo…. 

She jolts awake, tears streaming down her face. It takes a moment for her to remember that is not what happened. That instead, after they defeated Palpatine, she had been the one to fall. And Ben had saved her. She woke in his arms, as though into a dream. And kissed the face that had become like a mirror to hers. And he kissed her back, bringing her close. But he really had reached the end of his energy. He collapsed, unconscious. She had to get them out of there. 

In the little house on Tatooine, Rey opens her feelings to the possibilities floating in the air about how this exile would go. At first, she thought it would be a temporary recovery period until Ben woke up. But two weeks later, there is not a single sign of improvement. She has no idea what to do. The jedi texts offer no advice. And she has no one else to ask. Standing up from her nest on the couch, she wraps a thick blanket around her shoulders and goes to sit on the floor next to Ben’s bed. His breathing continues as always, slow and shallow. But he breathes. His hand lays beside him on the bed. Rey reaches her hand, damp with the tears she flung off her face, and places it over his. How ridiculously it dwarfs her own. She tries to convey some life force into him but it goes nowhere. He won’t accept it. 

Rey begins to feel not just despondent but foolish. Ben is as good as gone. She has no idea what she is doing here with him. She never imagined life after the First Order except somehow she knew Ben would be in it. But not like this. She lost him as soon as she had him. 

That thought proves too much to bear. She squeezes his hand and sobs quietly until she hears the med droid activating in the morning light. She drops his hand and goes to stand by the door, watching silent and wrecked as the two suns rise on the horizon.


End file.
